Sara Khameis's mother is Finnish, and her father is a Jordanian. Sara has grown up in Amman, the capital of Jordan. She received a bachelor degree in biotechnology in Jordan and then applied for a Master's degree in Finland.

This year Slush came back bigger and better than ever with 20 000 attendees, 2 600 startups, 1 600 investors and 600 journalists. Slush was held dec 4-5 in Messukeskus, the Helsinki Exhibition Center. The trends of this year included artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, machine learning, blockchain and sustainability. There were lots of inspirational speakers including Werner Vogels, Julia Hartz, Katarina Berg and Casey Winters.

Startup Refugees is one of the leading NGOs in Finland that helps asylum seekers and refugees by assisting them with starting a business or finding employment. I met with Maiju Mitrunen, the Head of Business & Employment Programs, in their office in Helsinki and we talked a little bit about the work they do.

A group of around 20 members of the far-right group, who call themselves “Soldiers of Odin” arranged a show off in the Puhos shopping mall in eastern Helsinki on Monday evening, frightening and intimidating immigrants. Puhos is a small shopping mall adjacent to Itis. The outdated mall has been rented out to mainly ethnic shops and restaurants. Visitors of the mall are almost all from Somali, Kurdish, Arab and other immigrant groups.

Mohammed received two negative decisions to his request for asylum and exhausted from the process, he returned voluntarily to Iraq. He now lives in Baghdad. In a phone call, Mohammed talks about why he left Iraq, the case and how he’s getting on back at home.

Taha fled Iraq for love. Unfortunately that’s not a reason good enough to stay in his adopted home in Finland. He went underground and now lives in Kirkkonummi with a Finnish family who wanted to help. Taha is one of thousands of undocumented immigrants in Finland.

THE31st HELSINKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, also referred to as Rakkautta & Anarkiaa (Love & Anarchy), came to a close on Sunday, having drawn in record breaking numbers. This year’s film festival attracted more than 60,000 visitors and featured almost 500 screenings.

It has now been three years since the biggest migration wave flowed into Europe in 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people headed towards the European continent. Although news coming from the Middle East showed a dramatic escalation in migration after the extensive uprisings and revolutions, none of the governments or politicians in the European Union were expecting what is known today as the European migrant crisis.

Helsinki fashion week is the first fashion event focusing on 100% sustainable production and brands. This year the event was held in an exciting old oil tank, transformed into exhibition centre, located in Laajasalo, Helsinki. While the shows were held inside the oil tank, and an eco village was set up outside.

Like much of Europe, Finland is cultivating a flourishing casino industry. As of writing, there are a total of eight cities throughout Finland that are home to at least one casino, with 16 gambling facilities situated amongst these territories.

THE FORECAST for the weekend of the 21st Tuska Open Air Metal Festival was not looking too good the week before. Torrential rains were promised for Friday and Saturday with temperatures around 10 degrees Celsius - Finnish summer at its best. Metalheads from all around the world were praying to the weather gods and stocking up on raincoats, rubber boots and gloves in preparation for yet another wet festival.

The frequent occurrence of extreme climate conditions is threatening the life of urban dwellers. Currently, more than 50 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas. By 2050 this will increase to 70 percent. With rapid growth of urbanization comes rapid changes in the landscape that affect the climate and air quality in urban areas, leading to higher temperatures – or “heat islands” – higher emissions, and more ambient pollutions. During the summer, the higher urban temperatures may lead to more frequent health problems, and actually increase the mortality rate among the most vulnerable urban dwellers including elders and less economically fortunate, for example.

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A shift in the global powerhouses of international aid and development is opening the door for city governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America to pick their own partners with an eye toward south-south cooperation.

Does who you work with affect how well you perform or how well you learn?

The answer is seemingly obvious — yes, of course.

Learning on the job depends heavily on the nature of working partnerships, which in turn are shaped by the experiences partners carry and the power relations between them. Yet city governments in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America do not often choose whom they work with on urban development projects supported by international aid or technical assistance. But they can and they should.

The rise of regional political and economic powers such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa on the world stage is shifting the center of technical expertise, international aid and development work. It is also providing those development stakeholders fighting for human wellbeing in their local communities with an opportunity to choose whom they wish to work with.

Much ado has been made about the value of this international development work led by countries in the global south, as opposed to traditional development partnerships with countries or organizations such as the World Bank or those based in the global north. Several international organizations such as the United Nations and the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as well as regional leaders themselves, herald partnerships between “developing” countries — or “south-south cooperation” — as a distinctly valuable way of promoting national development and learning among southern countries because of similarities in histories and the challenges they face.

For African cities in particular, this approach to tackling development problems is fostering what might be described as a buyer’s market for international cooperation. In other words, now that regional leaders like China, India or Brazil have become more significant providers of aid or assistance, the West is no longer the only partner in town.

Municipal authorities, particularly in capital cities where so much of the international development industry is based, actually have a choice about whom to work with on international cooperation projects. Almost a decade ago, India, Brazil and South Africa established a memorandum of understanding to foster cooperation between cities in the three countries, centered on sharing urban policy and technical assistance for challenges in creating affordable housing and other related urban development needs. In 2012, Brazil launched its own program to support south-south partnerships for development through technical cooperation projects at the subnational level, with a particular focus on projects between Brazilian municipalities and African partners in cities across the continent.

Of course, China is also heavily involved in promoting southern partnerships. Its Export-Import Bank (EXIM) and construction companies are investing significant funds throughout the continent, targeting the transformation of urban landscapes through special economic zones in and around cities such as Lusaka, Zambia and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; infrastructure projects such as the Catembe-Maputo bridge in Mozambique (what will be the longest suspension bridge in Africa); and even whole cities, such as Kilamba — just outside the Angolan capital of Luanda.

Yet critics question whether south-south cooperation is just another wolf in sheep’s clothing — a dangerously familiar and extractive means for new regional leaders to secure market depth and political support from less powerful countries. Whether positive or negative, big claims about international cooperation partnerships typically overshadow the local contexts in which aid is delivered and the importance of strong working relationships on the ground. In a forthcoming book, Disrupting Development, I argue that municipalities should more aggressively choose which development projects and partners to work with based on characteristics that include, but importantly also move beyond, simple geographies such as whether an international partner is from the global south or north.

These subtler characteristics of development cooperation give local authorities a sort of road map for anticipating which development partners will be best for different urban development projects — and for strategic learning.

While geography still matters, who you best work with is not a static concept. A shared geography or history alone is insufficient in helping authorities think about what really matters when working with an international cooperation partner on the ground. Luckily for cities, such peers can evolve, and unlike geography or history, can change over time. This means cities can learn about whom they best learn from and work with for effective urban development cooperation. While the learning curve is steep, the time is ripe to act.

Gabriella is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her teaching and research centre on municipal fiscal reforms and urban infrastructure development in parts of South America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Previously, she worked as the Senior Associate to the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers, a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation, and a former co-chair of the Global Planning Educators' Interest Group.